(In the summer of 2002, Michael
Fabius worked as an associate with the Center for Voting and
Democracy, focusing in particular on outreach to college campuses
about choice voting and instant runoff voting. Following is a report
about his college voting to convert student council elections to
these more advanced, fair voting methods. See also
our list of schools that use
alternative systems
.)

At the conclusion of an exciting
question and answer period, my co-chair, Josh Stevenson, and I produced
a near unanimous decision to adopt Instant Runoff Voting and
Choice Voting in Vassar's student government.

Vassar now joins a growing list
of student governments already electing their student leaders with
instant runoff voting. Vassar is also among the first student
governments to implement the choice voting method of proportional
representation. Implementing these valuable reforms at colleges and
universities is an excellent method to educate the next generation
of decision makers. Who knows, perhaps a future senator or
influential politician will now be electing their student
representatives with instant runoff voting and choice voting. How
much easier would our struggle be if the elected officials we try to
convince had already used IRV and/or PR when they were still in
school?

If you are interested in pursuing IRV/PR education in
colleges, universities or even high schools, please copy, paste
and/or edit the pasted e-mail below. As an alumni/ae, you may be
able to influence the current student government to consider this
reform or your son or daughter may be able to convince their student
government to implement IRV or PR.

As we all return to campus, it is
a time where we can re-evaluate what the campus provides, including
our student government. How does our student government represent
us? How is our student government a responsible democracy? Is our
election method as good as it could be?

Are our elections plagued
by candidates who win with 40%, 30%, or a lower percentage of the
votes? When a candidate wins with 40%, it also means that 60% voted
in opposition of that candidate. This is not majority rule, it's
minority rule.

Are our plagued by runoff elections between the top
two candidates where student participation drops into the miniscule
percentages? Why ask students to make a second trip to the polls,
election administrators to work twice as hard on a second election
and candidates to spend twice as much money on a second campaign
when this is all unnecessary?

The answer is a new election reform
called instant runoff voting. It is used on campus as large as
University of Maryland, University of Wisconsin, Harvard and
Stanford and as small as Carleton and Whitman. Instant runoff voting
simulates a runoff election by allowing students to rank their
candidates in the order of their preferences. This means students
get a first choice, second choice, third choice, etc and the student
government gets a runoff election that guarantees majority rule
without the costs in time, money and poor voter turnout of a second
election.

My name is Michael Fabius, I am the National Campus
Coordinator for the Center for Voting and Democracy. It is my job to
facilitate the conversion of a tradional election system to instant
runoff voting. The Center is a non-profit organization and my
assistance is entirely volunteer. I'm already working hard on
campuses such as Vassar College and William & Mary and I hope
both these schools will pass legislation before the end of the
semester.

I have a number of materials that
offer more information on instant runoff voting and would help any
individual interested in implementing this reform. If you would like
the materials, I can send them to you via snail mail or you may
visit my listserve at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/instantrunoffStudents/files/
to
download the materials. For more information you can visit
www.fairvote.org